Day 22: TRAIL MAGIC on friday the 13th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jee I slept so bad I had a hard time leaving camp this morning. Still I managed to do some laundry and hit the trail by 8:15am. At breakfast we saw a bunch of deer hanging around camp. Maybe they made the noises I so freaked out about at night. Hm that mountain lion night might have caused a bit of a trauma I’m afraid…

I passed some beautiful scenery on my way to Rae Lakes. And I noticed the belt of my backpack got even looser and I was carrying all the weight on my shoulders. I must have lost quite some weight. The shoulderstraps kinda cut into my bones whoops… I never thought I would burn so many calories and need sooooo much food. Never ever have I been craving so much. Luckely Stephan still had a pad I could but inbetween my hips and my pack which kinda make my backpack fit again.
Soon we reached Rae Lakes. OMG! BEAUTIFUL! Those mountains raising up from that lake with 2 cute islands!
AND THEN we hit Glen Pass…. Damn that was a fucking BITCH…. Not what I had expected… Not at all…. The first part was rocky and steep… switchbacks but still… And the sun was burning hot… Where I thought the pass would be…. turned out to be a fucking fake! It was only a plateau and we still had Glen Pass above us. It was crazy but somehow INSANELY BEAUTIFUL!!! Like walking into the sky! Before I hit that second part I was like: NO WAY! Fuck you Glen Pass! But when I started climbing that rocky pass it was just amazing! The views were absolutely breathtaking! Little blue lakes below, strong beautifully yellow coloured mountains and rocks around. The pass was like a knife edge. Small and you could look to both sides and both sides were equally impressive. On top we met Holland, a guy we crossed trail with several times before. Turned out he had to leave the trail for a few days because of an injury at his foot and now he was carrying around too much food…. So he started giving it to us: Oatmeal, dinners, chocolate, MnMs, Snickers, Cliff bars, almond butter,… OMG! Like as if we hit the jackpot! Haha as we were going up on Glen Pass Stephan, Tilt and I were talking about food all the time (actually since a few days now food is conversation topic number 1!), about our cravings, about what we’d like to eat right now… eh yeah… not sure if I should but this online but we even talked about eating human meat if we had to to survive… hm! And then on top of Glen Pass we are given all that food! WOW!
BUT THE TRAIL MAGIC WASN’T OVER YET!!!!!!
Going down the switchbacks through really impressive rocky scenery, after about 400 or 500 m, next to the trail there was a paper on the ground. Obviously covering something and nicely kept down by a circle of rocks.
The paper said: FOR HELEN AKA “CAT” FROM PAT. OOO MMM GGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!
I felt so moved. This touched my heart big time and my eyes filled with tears. Pat is the guy with the z packs cuben fiber pack we talked to yesterday and who’d given Armand the Clif Bar for me.
I removed the stones one by one, took away the paper and I found cheese and cream wheat underneath!!!! OMG!!! THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH PAT! Trail magic!!!!! I was so touched and moves that I hiked the whole afternoon on the energy of that amazing surprise!
I came all the way from Belgium to hike the JMT and in the middle of wilderness I find this note and a gift from a person I don’t even really know but who rememberd me and wanted to do something good to me! THAT IS MAGIC and I AM THE MOST GRATEFUL WOMAN ON EARTH! I hope one day I can thank this man!

(Please don’t mind my bad English, I’m so overwhelmed that I have a hard time finding my words ;c)

The whole way down to Vidette Meadow was so amazingly beautiful that I can hardly describe it in words. The switchbacks down to Vidette gave me the MOST BEAUTIFUL VIEW AND SCENERY I’VE EVER SEEN! My eyes filled with tears again. It was like as if you could look into 3 valleys at once, valleys seperated by Center Peak and dipped in a mystic hazy light, creating so much depth! I never ever want to forget that image.
Down at Vidette Meadow we still had to climb for 3 miles but the trail went up smoothly and gradually and we were rewarded with beautiful views till we reached camp at Upper Basin at about 5:30pm. We set up camp and had an amazing sunset on the Pinnacles and the mountains we came from. The light was changing from yellow to orange to purple and red. It was AMAZING. Like in a distant fairy tale land! I had a trail magic dinner and a hot chocolate and right now I feel incredibly thankful and blessed! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!